Reflections on World Leadership - Research Paper Example

? Profesor’s Top of Form Bottom of Form Reflections on World’s Leadership It can safely be said that understanding the keyconcepts and traits of a leader can consequently lead people into referring to a leader as either good or bad, considering the book, (Myers, 21). Leadership can be defined as the process of an intentional social influence that an authorised person has the right to enlist an aid and a relevant support to the other party in an attempt to meet a common goal. The main aim of this paper is to Look into two leaders, Prince Alwaleed bin Tala as a good business leader compared to Mike Lazaridis. Prince Alwaleed bin Talal best known as one of the world's value investor. “Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Company, where he posses at least 95%, trading on the famous Saudi stock exchange, in addition he owns stakes in several hotel management companies the famous four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, moreover he has a stake in Savoy Hotel in London” (Lazaridis, 211). “Kingdom investment has billions of dollars of the U.S. and international equities, as well as shares of News Corp and Citigroup” (Myers, 21). “During the year 2012 he and the Kingdom investment purchased an approximated 3% stake in the social media Twitter through the secondary market for whopping $400 million. The same year February, Kingdom investments invested around $136 million in fast growing Chinese e-commerce company. In addition to other known investment he Prince posses far-reaching real estate plus other assets exterior of the Kingdom Holding” (Khan, 65). He is perhaps well identified internationally as the controlling shareholder of the Kingdom Holdings Company and the chairman, of the world’s most significant investment company. All through Middle East he is renowned as the proprietor of the Rotana, which is the Arab world’s largest leisure company. Prince’s prominence as a businessman has not only been acknowledged by several people around the world but also Time magazine, who referred to him as “Arabian Warren Buffett.” Far from of business, he is also being respected for his philanthropic voluntary activities as the creator and supporter of the famous Alwaleed Bin Talal Foundations, which is specifically is specifically directed towards supporting global cultural understanding, community development projects in Saudi Arabia, all around the world and Lebanon, women empowerment and disaster recovery. Key leadership qualities which drives me into considering him as a good leader in business According to (McGreevy, 209), “An Interview with HRH, Prince says that A successful businessman has to have an ultimate plan and a well stated objectives, in conjunction to a well defined mission statement”, he goes ahead to say that the leader has to have an audacity to make decisions which most of the time might not be emulated by others in the short run. He goes ahead to say that as a leader and sometimes he made decisions which are may not be appreciated by both young managers and the community. “Nevertheless, he just has to remain a one-man show. He established these traits at KHC sometimes back” (Myers, 21). Key Leadership Traits That Makes Prince To Stand Out As A Good Leader Has a clear vision; old adage "either stand something, or you might fall for everything." ( Sweeny, 79). Prince practically stood firm when it come to the implementation of the company's policies and procedures. More over as a leader, he has a clear way to communicate his vision and the company’s vision to the people such as his employees. Have passion in his word. He realized that his employees wanted passion; and that his employee would even go to the ends of earth as a result of it, die and live. He also realized that his passion inspired others to conquer new and dangerous challenges. “Great decision maker. He clearly understood his process for decision making. Take for example he talked to his management team” (McGreevy, 209). In addition to conducting a cost analysis. “He went ahead to even come up timeline for the execution of a well defined strategy, the process and the timing part” ( Sweeny, 79). “A team builder. He developed a great team to run his business, he started by handing off various responsibility to his professional team and letting them to team to go by it. He did not breath down his neck neither did he micromanage, rather he availed himself if questions or problems which cropped up” (Sweeny, 209). He even thought his team to apply the Q-CAT decision-making system and consequently giving them the freedom to work via their own decisions (Sweeny, 79). “Mike Lazaridis, Is a Greek famously known as a Canadian businessman, and an investor in the quantum computing technologies, the founder and the Vice Chairman of the BlackBerry, that initiated and manufactured the BlackBerry handheld device” (Lazaridis, 241). “As a fervent supporter for the authority of essential science to advances and transforms the whole world, Mike co-founded the Quantum Valley Investments in 2013 March 2013 alongside his childhood friend Douglas Fregin in an attempt to avail financial and logical capital for the advance development and commercialization of breakthrough in quantum science of information” (McGreevy, 209). Apart from the aforementioned, “in 1999 he initiated the Perimeter Institute for the Theoretical Physics, where he served as the Board Chair. Apart from his business venture, he was former chancellor at the University of Waterloo, in addition to being an Officer of Order in Canada” (Lazaridis, 214). Owning an estimated net worth of about $900 Million as at June 2011, he has been ranked as Canadian 17th wealthiest and 651st world wealthiest” (Lazaridis, 211). Despite the fact that his works being renowned, he is still being considered a bad leader in some ways; some of the key reasons why I will consider him a bad leader though are as follows. “Mike was Unbalanced to some extent; in a way he failed to find the right balance in between support and disciplined” (Myers, 29). Take for instance, a drill-sergeant move towards project management may leave employees discontented, whilst an easygoing approach may be unsuccessful to push them firm enough to achieve the project goals. “He ought to have found a balance in between pushing workers to be their best and assisting them works in line with their limitations” (Myers, 21). “He failed to diversify. A board populated completely by bean-counters is an awful idea. All the eight of RIM’s of exterior the directors, as well as its chairman and the lead director, are the economists accountants and finance people” (Myers, 21). Just as the minds do think alike and may be compelled to subject to group-think. When considering strategic mistake and commercial governance, as with other several things, he failed to realize that a little diversity is essential. In a way he failed to respect the competition. “The Former Intel (INTC), CEO Andy Grove had it all right, he said that only the paranoid does survive” (McGreevy, 209). “He ignored the competition consequently, he failed to scale to keep up with its products demand and growth, and he failed to continue to innovate new products feeling competent with the already available products, oblivious of the competitors” (McGreevy, 209). Promoting products in within its own premises. The situation at the RIM calls for someone from outside. Since Heins was part and parcel of that problem, He was to take part in finding the solution yet he failed (Lazaridis, & Killam 211). In fact it failed to bode well that, being part of the business leadership, he failed to see what most of the outsiders did see very long ago long ago. Instead of diversifying the promotion of the products across the board he went ahead to only promote the products within the premise itself, this is a bad leadership strategy since it hinders, effective competition, leading to decayed growth etc. Furthermore, I fail to see him as turnaround the CEO material (McGreevy, 209). He failed to realize that Capitalism is alive. Considering the premature dismiss of RIM's reinforces that the entrepreneurial success may be fleeting. It only gives a mere teaching that as companies we learn from the leaders who deserves our admiration and respect there are several viral product, though the ones which survive the onslaught of a very competitive markets and in some way go on thriving (Lazaridis,511). The aforementioned inactions or actions are not only not healthy for the development of a business since they compelled the employees into believing that management does not to respect them and fails to care a whit about them. “His traits did put the employees in a dilemma of what management demands and believing in the fact that management must always be right about virtually everything since nobody has the permission to make decisions” (Sweeny, 29). In addition, his leadership did shut off the natural innovation, creativity, and productivity of every employee and gradually but without doubt demoralizes and demotivates his workers. With his false attitude “I am the best and knows what is best for everyone” and his infamous one “stay quiet and get to listen to what I have tom say” state of mind often projected from management, the majority will act like robots waiting for instructions, even if that is not what management intended” (Sweeny, 79). CONCLUSION Although their position as the manager of the said companies, it only gave them the tacit mandate to accomplish the stated goals and objectives in their respective organization, this power however did not make Mike a good leader as compared to Prince Alwaleed, it simply made him the boss leader ordering workers around instead of driving them to a common goal. Reference Chancellors of the university of waterloo: Mike lazaridis, sylvia ostry, dana porter, josef. (2010). S.l.: General Books. Lazaridis, M., & Killam Trust. (2011). The power of a great idea. Halifax, N.S: Killam Trusts. Melady, J., & In Whibbs, S. (2013). Breakthrough!: Canada's greatest inventions and innovations. Sweeny, A. (2009). BlackBerry planet: The story of Research in Motion and the little device that took the world by storm. Mississauga, Ont: John Wiley & Sons Canada. Khan, R. (2005). Alwaleed: Businessman, billionaire, prince. New York: William Morrow. McGreevy, P., Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Studies and Research. and American University of Beirut. (2006). America in the Middle East: The Middle East in America : proceedings of the first international conference sponsored by the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut. Beirut, Lebanon: American University of Beirut. Reforms in Islamic education: Report of a conference held at the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Centre of Islamic Studies, University of Cambridge, April 9-10, 2011. (2011). University of Cambridge. Khan, R. (2005). Alwaleed: Billionaire, businessman, prince. London: HarperCollins Entertainment. Myers, R., Batakji, N., & American University of Beirut. (2011). Connections and ruptures: America and the Middle East : proceedings of the third International Conference sponsored by the Prince Alwaleed Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut. Beirut: American University of Beirut. McGreevy,(2009). Liberty and justice, America and the Middle East: Proceedings of the second international conference sponsored by the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Center for American Studies and Research at the American University of Beirut. Beirut: American University of Beirut. Read More